Ohio's firearms hunting season off to a fast start (with video)

Sometimes deer hunting in Northeast Ohio is so easy that even a youngster can do it.

Just ask teenager Jaret Tekavac of Willoughby who on Monday killed a six-point buck in Ashtabula County's Hartsgrove Township.

Jaret was just one of 813 deer hunters who took animals in Ashtabula County on Monday, the opening day of Ohio's seven-day firearms deer-hunting season.

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Then again, on Monday, 29,297 deer were shot statewide, a substantial increase over 2011's opening day tally of 23,600 deer.

Only four of Ohio's 88 counties saw fewer deer killed on Monday's opener than on the 2011 firearms season start, too, said the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' Division of Wildlife.

Yet for participants such as Jaret, his deer represented something of a mile marker in his hunting career.

"It was his first deer," said his father, Jim. "I am not sure who was happier, him or me. It was a proud day for dad, and a smile from ear-to-ear for a 14-year-old-boy."

Equally proud with Monday's deer kill results are officials with the Wildlife Division.

Scott Peters, wildlife administrator for the Wildlife Division's District Three (Northeast Ohio) Office in Akron, said the high deer kill did not come as much of the surprise, either.

"I actually thought the hunters would do well; there was excellent weather with some cold that kept hunters on the move and that helped to keep the deer active as well," Peters said.

He said takes his personal snapshot by looking at game processors.

"In general most of the hunters that I talked to said they're seeing more deer but there's a bias because I am at a game processor where typically only successful hunters show up," Peters said.

Yet a higher kill than last year shows that the state's deer herd remains high; perhaps too high, at least in some counties such as Lake and Cuyahoga, he said.

"Northeast Ohio is very tough in managing deer, largely because we have a lot of urban areas where hunting is either restricted or prohibited, especially with firearms," Peters said. "That makes our job more challenging, particularly in finding ways to improve hunter access."

As for the rest of the week, Peters believes Ohio hunters will take more deer this deer gun season than they did during last year's seven-day season.

"The deer are there, but this is why it's called hunting and not killing," he said.

Deer processors are also being kept busy locally, including Joe O'Donnell, of Mentor, who owns the O'Donnell Meat Processing shop in Leroy Township.

And though firearms hunting for deer is legal in Leroy Township, the neighborhood around his business was rather quiet on Monday, O'Donnell said.

"To tell you the truth, I didn't hear much shooting around the shop but I did get a lot of deer in, and I'm almost full right," he said. "Most of the deer that I have to process came from either Geauga or Lake county, too."

O'Donnell did say that all of the deer he has are spoken for by their owners with none having been donated for an annual venison drive conducted by the game processor.

"I'm not concerned," he said. "Donations usually come later in the week."

And not only was Monday's deer kill bigger than last year the several hundred thousand hunters did so without any shooting accidents, called incidents, said Matt Ortman, the Wildlife Division's administrator in charge of hunter education who handles statistic gathering of hunter-induced incidents.

For a county-by-county breakdown of Monday's opening deer kill/harvest, see the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' specific web site on the matter at http://bit.ly/V627g9.